Democrracy

THE STORY:

Lies, unfulfilled promises, lobbying, hypocrisy, and corruption have led to the current democratic apathy and alienation in political participation. Many have lost faith in their representative leaders and this, amongst other factors, has led to a declining trend in electoral participation.

I experienced it first hand in two countries. In the U.S., I used to be an activist pushing for common sense immigration reform. In Colombia, I pushed for policies that would enable tech entrepreneurship. After meeting many politicians I realized how slow, obsolete, and in many instances, corrupt, our current political systems are. I was fed up.

I wasn’t alone. I quickly found several people that shared this sentiment and also wanted change. We asked ourselves this question:

If democracy were to be invented today, what would it look like?

As we set to reinvent democracy, we looked for advice from thought leaders in several sectors. We conducted hundreds of brainstorm sessions. Simultaneously, we started coding nights and weekends developing the software required to prototype some of the best ideas.

After a year of experimenting, we have identified the most promising ideas. We are now combining them into one revolutionary, easy-to-engage with, platform. We call it Democrracy.

Democrracy is an online platform for groups of all types and varying sizes to create their own, independent and trustworthy democracies.

Any group will be able to quickly and easily create a Democrracy and enable any of these functionalities:

Discussion - Thoughtful, open conversations are essential for successful democracies. By allowing members to upvote and downvote threads and comments, Democrracy enables groups to engage in intelligent, trolling-free discourse.

Decision-making - Members can easily propose and vote online or via an app for ideas, initiatives, referendums, and suggestions for laws.

Transparency - Members can view the votes and delegations of other members of the group, check who is behind (or leading) the group and receive real-time information about any activity.

Direct and representative voting - Members can vote directly or delegate their vote to others. When members are too busy to vote, their delegates will decide for them. Some call this concept delegative or liquid democracy.

Multi-layered delegation - Members can delegate to others they trust. Anybody can be a delegate. Delegates can, in turn, appoint their accumulated votes to other delegates.

Delegate to one or many - Members can delegate their votes to one or multiple members, thus diversifying opinions and decisions.

Avoid hacking - By being transparent, votes can easily be traced back and audited by any member of the group.

Real timeness - Members can change their delegates at any time.

Identity verification - Groups can set their policies for determining who can join and how.

We acknowledge that Democrracy doesn’t solve certain issues innate to democracies, such as the potential oppression of the minority by the majority. Similarly, Democrracy may not be a good fit for groups where freedom of expression is limited and transparent voting could lead to intimidation. Still, we believe that Democrracy can be a significant step forward by creating new spaces for civic engagement.

Who can use Democrracy?

Several political leaders have already shown interest in using Democrracy with their constituents. They could, among other things, ask their followers what topics they should focus on and what ideas they should vote for, and also engage in thoughtful conversations with other members of the group.

We have also identified multiple thought leaders of groups of all types and varying sizes that could use Democrracy: online communities, student associations, neighborhoods, shareholders of companies, boards of directors, unions, cooperatives, and even families.

Millions of displaced immigrants could use Democrracy to work and make decisions together. Governments could dynamically ask their citizens for their opinion on multiple fronts. The options are countless.

How can Democrracy succeed?

Democrracy can succeed in many ways: it can enable the creation of thousands of democracies, big and small, become the legislative branch of existing democracies, allow the creation of new political parties, help children learn about political participation early on, make democracy part of our daily lives, enable introverts to become political leaders, and inspire others to build similar platforms.

When will Democrracy launch?

Soon! We are currently working on making Democrracy a real, scalable solution. We are performing extensive user research and applying the latest design thinking methodologies and technological frameworks to make Democrracy accessible to all. When ready, any group of any size will be able to quickly and easily create a Democrracy and easily determine personalized settings such and who can join and how. We are also building an API so that others can build upon Democrracy and extend its functionality.

If we gather enough financial resources, we will be able to offer the platform for free to groups that can’t afford to pay for the hosting. If we receive enough donations, we’ll be able to employ software engineers full time, so that we can launch faster than if we continue volunteering our time.

You can help!

We believe that future generations need to be inspired and must be able to live in a world with a government of the people, by the people and for the people. We believe that democratic systems should evolve to remain competitive and thrive. We believe that democratic systems should evolve to remain competitive and thrive.

Join us! Show your support by letting us know if you’d like to use Democrracy when ready, and by funding us too. Let’s work together on making democracy fulfilling.

Donor Comments

Tania Zapata

DONATION: $4,000

Fundraise online and raise money for charity and causes you’re passionate about. CrowdRise is an innovative, cost-effective online fundraising website for personal fundraising pages, non-profit fundraising and event fundraising. Raise money online for causes and have the most fun in the world while doing it.